Aegis
by femme4jack
Summary: Coding and culture collide, and come to a new understanding as two hydrocolony mechs who lost everything but each other attempt to find a new home and partners among the Earth-based Autobots. Written for the 2012 TF Gift Exchange on Dreamwidth. Movieverse AU with G1 Characters and references
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Aegis  
**Author:** Femme4jack  
**Continuity:** Movieverse AU (takes place a few years after 2012, novelization ending assumed, G1 elements, refs. chars. deactivated in canon as still functioning).  
**Pairing/Characters:** Hound/Trailbreaker, Beachcomber/Seaspray, Beachcomber/Hound, Seaspray/Trailbreaker, Carly Spencer, Mikaela Banes, Will Lennox, various OC humans (minor), refs. Hound/Mirage/Trailbreaker, Dino/Hound, Dino/Trailbreaker, Bumblebee/Various, many other moresomes  
**Rating:** Mature

**Notes:** Written for Synaltern for the TF Gift Exchange using the prompt _dedicated pairing/group with an open but secure relationship. _Also used the Earth table from the tformers100 community on Livejournal and the 'truly alien sex' request on the LJ kinkmeme.

Thank you Sharpest_Asp (Merfilly on Ao3) for running this amazing exchange!

My sincerest thanks to Fractalserpent and Hopeofdawn for being such amazing betas. They were extremely helpful, encouraging, and the sources of so many awesome ideas, images, wording and flow-suggestions. They are the main reason this story snowballed as much as it did!

**Content:** Alien sensuality and culture, AU frametype (Distillers), explicit alien form of penetrative interfacing based on internal energon distillation and siphoning (non-sticky and not human analogous), polyamorous culture, moresome with consensual one-sided monogamy on the part of some characters. Refs. to the aftereffects of long term captivity, abuse and rape of unnamed OCs. Refs. fueling as a religious/ritual experience.

Glossary and additional notes on prompts, characters, frametypes, and alts can be found at the end of the fic.

_Personal note: I know it seems like I haven't been writing or updating at all! I've actually been writing like crazy, but it was all for the gift exchange, which I can finally de-anon and cross post. I hope you enjoy! Please let me know. This fic is complete and will be posted in 3 chapters (approx 15K words). You don't have to worry about another stalled serial, because this baby is done. Maybe now that the naturebots aren't holding me hostage, I can get back to work on some of the others._

* * *

_Aegis: A shield or breastplate emblematic of majesty. Also, the protection of a powerful, knowledgeable, or benevolent source._

* * *

Beachcomber sat at the overlook, contemplating the striated canyon and the Grand Ronde's winding rush on its inevitable path toward the Snake River. He had a few hours before he needed to travel north, where he would meet Seaspray at the McNary Dam and Lock on the Columbia River in Umatilla. There were things he and Seaspray needed to discuss, and he wanted to have his spark and processors settled before that happened. Normally, the rush of waters beneath him and the wind against his haptics and microturbines would be doing just that, but he was far from centered at the moment.

Seaspray had been finding excuses for increasingly lengthy absences from base, and while Beachcomber couldn't blame him, it was not aiding their situation. Their empty bonds were a constant ache, and the two Distillers needed to make themselves available to court and be courted by the potential Aegismechs, a process requiring both time and proximity. Even if they opted for Bumblebee's option, they would need to forge links to settle their coding requirements. Still, Beachcomber understood - neither of them were coded for confined spaces, nor for the climate of the arid caldera where the Cybertronian-style base/embassy was being built (as interesting as the ancient volcanic preserve was, geologically speaking).

It was a shame, really, that the base on Diego Garcia had been abandoned before the two had even arrived on earth. While the island location had made very little sense strategically speaking for an army comprised primarily of grounders, it would certainly have been a far better fit for the two hydrocolony mechs than northeastern Oregon, especially for Seaspray, who did not have a land alt.

It was far more than that, though. As warm and friendly as he was, Seaspray was having difficulty taking the appropriate steps to forge a new link, or to even form the preliminary connections of friendship with the non-colonial mechs. No matter what larger mech agreed to become his partner, his Aegis would not be another hydroformer, and Seaspray had partnered with Oceanus since they'd onlined. As a result, Seaspray was retreating to the familiar, even if it was a painfully solitary version of it. He felt at home patrolling on the wide stretches of the Columbia, or better yet, the coastlines of Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and the depths beyond.

The transition would come easier for Beachcomber. He was amphibious and had an alt that functioned both on land and water, so a grounder Aegis could still share functioning with him in a meaningful way. While Beachcomber, too, felt the call of long expeditions and the wilderness, the lack of an Aegis was becoming extremely uncomfortable, especially as his systems adjusted to the abundance after so much scarcity. The human word "bloated" described the feeling in his distillation tanks all too well as his internal systems eagerly processed the numerous energy sources and materials available on earth into highly concentrated substances vital to Cybertronian life. He was spending more time on base just for the comforting brush of the big mechs' fields, frequently adding the richness of his distiller tanks into the common supplies so that at least he could provide for his larger comrades in that manner.

He'd had more than a few offers to fuel the larger mechs in the more intimate way, at least from those who had the appropriate mods and were familiar with his class's unique function. It was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore his courting protocols as he waited for Seaspray.

It had been long... far too long since his field had been fully enmeshed with that of a larger mech as their frames interconnected, a siphon making its exquisite journey through his channel. He longed to feel the bursts of suction, the sweet rush from his distillation tanks, his own frame shuddering and lighting up in the wash of the larger mech's grateful overloads. His ache for Sandstone was more than just the painfully empty lacuna where a bond should have been. They had been so close, so connected and compatible. The affectionate and protective brush of Sandstone's field had told him exactly what concentrated formulation his partner needed, whether synthegon, lubricants, coolant or other vital fluids. Responding to that with every tool his frame was equipped with had been right on the most fundamental of levels.

Seaspray was a comfort. Their companionship soothed some of the gaping emptiness, but what were two Distillers without big, consumptive and protective partners to look after? Their function, and their need for a dyadic bond were written and hardwired in their coding and frames.

Beachcomber was grateful, though. Oceanus and Sandstone had been bonded to one another, along with several of the other colonials, and through their bond, he and Seaspray were cadre. He was not sure he could have gone on without Seaspray after... after.

The two Distillers had not gone so far as to bond with one another, obviously. That would have felt too fundamentally wrong. Yet, no matter the cultural taboos and coded preferences of their class, spark-shattering grief had necessitated them taking comfort in one another when it seemed that they were, literally, the last Cybertronians left on Aqueous.

It had been just the two of them for so very long, searching for others in first on the vastness of their ocean world and then in the ocean of space.

Now they were far from alone. There was a base full of mechs who were ideal candidates to be their Aegis partners, and a great deal of interest in the rare Distillers. However, if the two really wanted to present as a cadre, both needed to actually be present, and some educating of their larger comrades would be in order. Most of the big mechs did not even know what an Aegis was, even though so many of them were finely suited to the partnership. Distillers had not been common on Cybertron when Energon had flowed from the Allspark itself. They had been engineered for the outer colonies, using their extreme efficiency and oversized sparks to process lesser resources into a format that was usable by their more consumptive partners. When energon and other resources had become scarce, Distillers had become valuable, especially once war broke out. Autobots and Decepticons alike had been guilty of failing to respect the fundamental coding that made Distillers so unique, the former mostly out of cultural misunderstanding, the latter because they simply did not care.

Beachcomber had seen the results of that use among the few Distillers the Autobots had managed to recover, and it was not a memory file he cared to access. Brutally forced to provide a constant supply, his code-kin, some of them close friends from Aqueous, had become little more than drones, the common fueling depots for the Fallen's forces. He was not sure the survivors would ever recover.

It was those memories, vying with the practical solution Bumblebee presented, which robbed Beachcomber of his usual serenity. He knew what he and Seaspray needed in order to heal, but their needs were not necessarily in the best interests of the stunningly few mechs attempting to build a new future on their adopted home. The dyads their coding and sparks longed for were odd, even deviant in Autobot culture. Aegismechs in the colonies had understood their coding needs, and had made the one-sided Distiller monogamy work within the complex relational geometry of their cadres. But it was increasingly clear that the earth-based Autobots might very well find the idea selfish and unnatural.

And maybe they were right.

* * *

Beachcomber responded to Seaspray's hail with a few cheerily pinged glyphs of his own when the high speed, submarine-hydrofoil was three miles out, traveling at a relaxed 130 knots. None of the humans at the McNary Lock could hear the hydroformer's alien engines, nor were they likely to glimpse his chameleon armor until he surfaced below them, ready to enter the lock. Beachcomber continued chatting amiably with the Army Corp of Engineers lock operators until Seaspray radioed in on their own channel, greeting them like old friends. They had become quite familiar with the hydroformer since he and Beachcomber had arrived a little over a year ago.

Beachcomber did not have Seaspray's speed on the water, so he had not taken his own terraquad mode to meet him downstream. He and his cadre-mate did, however, plan on an easy cruise through Lake Wallula, the reservoir formed by the McNary Dam. It would give them a chance to reconnect and talk before meeting Trailbreaker and Hound at the decommissioned Hanford Nuclear Reservation where the Autobots were slated to take over the cleanup and restoration of the environmental disaster. The Autobots could easily reprocess the waste and contaminants there into usable fuel and resources, especially with two Distillers available who could take on the necessary mods. They could have started nearly a year ago if not for all the proverbial red tape.

"How was your trip?" lock manager Davis called out as Seaspray's sleek, vaguely shark-like shape made his way into the navigation lock, seventy-five feet below.

"Highly enjoyable," the hydroformer replied even as he extended a docking cable (more to comply with the lock regulations than for any real need). "One of the Vancouver Island orca pods befriended me. I think I was practically adopted."

"Doesn't surprise me," one of the other lock workers called over as she set the gates to close. "I want to adopt you. But I think Beachcomber has dibs."

Beachcomber gave an easy laugh. "Everyone wants to adopt Seaspray, Garcia," he called over the sound of the water pumps. "You should've seen all the different types of wildlife that decided he was one of their own on Aqueous. There were these giant water-breathers, looked a lot like manta rays, but big as blue whales. They thought Spray was their personal cleaner fish."

"The barnacle-like parasites they picked up were actually quite useful, in terms of mineral composition," Seaspray explained. "I could've harvested the materials elsewhere, but why not make friends?"

"Just when I think I've heard it all," Davis said, shaking his head as water continued pumping into the lock, the level slowly rising. "Alien robots who eat barnacles off of blue whale-sized manta rays. What will they come up with next?"

"Not eat, exactly," Seaspray qualified as the water level continued to slowly rise. "More like... break down and absorb. But speaking of eating, Davis, please tell your superiors that I installed the devices that will deter the sea lions from hunting salmon downstream from the Bonneville and get them to head back out to the ocean. It will prove far more effective than the current hazing methods. And I will transmit my report on the human take of wild versus hatchery fish once the tribal authorities have had a chance to review and respond. I'll have a solution to propose to keep the non-hatchery fish out of the nets, but I want to review it with my associates first."

It was shorthand for checking with Prowl to make sure the technology in question did not violate the terms of the treaty. All the parties involved in the ecological dispute had agreed to allow Seaspray to do a scientific survey and propose solutions as an impartial party.

"Will do, Seaspray," Davis said with a casual salute. "Never thought I'd see the day when NOAA, the animal welfare groups, and the tribal fisheries would be able to agree on anything. You did good, kid."

At that, Seaspray used his horizontal rudder assembly (more dolphin-like than shark) to teasingly splash the lock manager.

"If you are going to call someone a million something years your senior a kid, you'd better expect him to act like one," Garcia called from the opposite wall of the lock.

"Just as long as he doesn't spit water like Shamu, I'll overlook it," Davis said, sputtering when a jet of water splashed him. "I... really had that one coming."

"The designation should warn you," Beachcomber said fondly, smiling and watching his cadre-mate as the water continued to rise.

They continued to chat and joke, as well as make inquiries about Garcia's menagerie of pets and Davis's kids until the water in the lock was level with the reservoir upstream from the dam. Beachcomber stepped over the barrier and transformed into his terraquad alt, driving straight into the water with a splash, bobbing up and down next to Seaspray as he shifted his wheels to the side for his aquatic mode.

"Catch you rascals next time!" Davis called, hitting the button that opened the gates of the lock.

"Don't let the big ones step on you!" Garcia added.

Seaspray and Beachcomber laughed and promised to do so, likewise calling out their farewells as they headed up the reservoir. They went at a reasonably fast clip for Beachcomber and a far more leisurely pace for Seaspray, who repeatedly dove beneath Beachcomber and surfaced in front, behind, or to either side.

::_Now you are acting like an orca,_:: Beachcomber teased on their private channel.

::_They were fun company,_:: Seaspray commented a bit wistfully, ever aware that he lacked the appropriate partner for deep water voyages. ::_Rudimentary auditory language, too. It will be fascinating to watch them continue to evolve, if we get to stay in this system. The pod matriarch gave me a designation._:: Seaspray offered a series of musical clicks and whistles.

::_What does it mean?_:: Beachcomber asked.

::_The best translation I can come up with is **What is that? I like it.**_::

::_You've been called that before._::

::_Better than, **Is that edible?** I don't need to go through that again. So how goes it on base? Your field is wound tighter than the tentacles on a dartsucker._::

::_That obvious?_:: Beachcomber asked sheepishly, willing his field to relax enough to brush against Seaspray's as the submarine surfaced beside him, the triangular fins on either side and his rudder extending downward to form the hydrofoils that helped him skim the surface.

::_You're rarely as laid back as other mechs think you are, but something really has you stirred up. Does it start with a Bumble and end with a Bee?_:: Seaspray nudged against him, swamping Beachcomber's front end in the process.

::_It's going to stir you up, too, Spray, which is probably why I'm so wound. We were right, on most accounts. He was onlined with the revised coding, rather than by his own choice later. His creators felt that Distiller-Aegis dyads were a relic of the past, and edited the binary orientation out before the nanoassemblers were even added to the tank. He formally bonded with Prime's cadre, but rarely turns any mech away, cadre or not._::

::_How is it working out for him?_:: Seaspray asked, partly fascinated but mostly appalled by the notion, if his field was any indication.

::_It's all he knows. But he's never felt... exploited or used, if that is what you're asking. His opinion is that the dyad coding was originally a means for a single, powerful mech to have direct control over a resource that offered an advantage over others. He believes that aspect of Distiller and Aegis coding is distinctly... Decepticon in nature,_:: Beachcomber said carefully.

Seaspray's engines roared in response, and he shot ahead a few hundred feet before circling back. ::_Try telling that to Distillers who were held by the 'Cons without an Aegis._::

::_You don't have to convince me,_:: Beachcomber said, with an engine rev of his own. ::_And Bumblebee gets that, too. He didn't say anything, but he was briefly held by Megatron. Even then, he feels that Distiller bonding is proprietary in nature on the part of the Aegis, which isn't an Autobot value when it comes to sharing pleasure or resources, and he trusts the Autobots not to exploit him._::

::_Then he trusts them more than I do. This war made too many no different from Decepticons. What would happen to Bumblebee if he did decide to stop collecting the proverbial nectar for the hive? What will happen to us, for that matter, if we keep holding out? Don't you think it's telling that both Ratchet and Prime brought up a coding revision?_::

::_Because they all saw the ways that coding makes us uniquely vulnerable, Spray. I don't believe Optimus would force it on us, though._:: Beachcomber said uncertainly.

::_No, perhaps not, but there are gentler ways to leave mecha feeling like they have no choice in the end. I've seen what happens to Distillers without an Aegis. Mine is welcome to share what I provide with any in need or the common tanks, but I will only be opening myself to one mech's siphon. Let the big mechs deal with other big mechs' needs._::

::_Then are you ready to start courting?_:: Beachcomber asked carefully.

Seaspray slumped a bit in the water. ::_There are good mechs on this world, Beachcomber. And I'm already a mess of errors from going this long. It... I just really miss Oceanus. I'm not sure it will ever feel quite right without him. But it's ridiculous to hold off now that we've actually found what we've been looking for so long. And yes, to your next question. I think Hound and Trailbreaker are the best choice in terms of compatibility, at least from what I've seen, and the fact that we will be working with them is an excellent opportunity. You have a preference?_::

::_I like them both, a great deal. I haven't discussed the matter with them yet. I'm not sure either of them really understand Distiller coding since all they know is Bumblebee and most of their functioning has been in wartime. But they are bonded, they seem open to widening their cadre, or at least they interface outside it. No surprises there. They both enjoy the outdoors and longer expeditions._::

::_And your preference?_:: Seaspray asked again, pointedly.

::_I have one, but I don't want that to impact you. If you feel drawn more strongly to one over the other, you should court him. This is a harder transition for you than for me. I have a land mode. As long as we are still cadre when all is said and done, that's what matters._::

Seaspray responded to that the way he normally did to such sentiments - an affectionate brush against the hull that left Beachcomber's open design a bit swamped.

* * *

"So... are you doing what I think you're doing?" the brunette asked as she walked into the room where Carly was scribbling with her stylus on (and in) a cube-shaped holographic mist screen. She appeared to be drawing something that looked a little like a cross between a hugely complex three-dimensional football play... and technical schematics.

"Did you do this, too, when you first met them?" Carly asked.

"And broke Sam's brain trying to figure it out. Though it was simpler then. Not as many," Mikaela replied.

Carly stepped back from her diagram. "So, how far off am I?" she asked. "If I'm really a cultural liaison, I should understand this."

"Well," Mikaela said, slightly amused and a little coy, "part of the fun is in figuring it out. But I'll give you the same hint Jazz gave me - you are thinking in human too much, and too much in terms of pairs."

"Not so," Carly objected, pointing her stylus at the scribbled 'BB', nestled happily in a radiating web of lines - many of them hatched, crossed-out, curvy, or overwritten with little question marks. "I know that Bee, uhm, gets around."

Mikaela snorted at that. "Truth. But the other thing you need to keep in mind is that there are different ways for them to be with each other. You've got the casual interfacing lines pretty good, though there's different methods and degrees. But you'll need cadre bonds, anchoring bonds, guardian bonds, mentor bonds... hold on," Mikaela slid open a compartment and rummaged around until she found one of the styluses that could be formatted. She quickly plugged it into her wrist jack and used her dermal keyboard to adjust its settings. "Use different colors. It's easier."

Carly blinked, looking at the line of colored lights on the side of the new writing implement. "I'm going to need - twelve? Twelve different colors."

"At least," Mikaela said with a bit of a smirk.

Carly shook her head and used the eraser function to begin deleting or adjusting color on some of the lines connecting various Autobots, pausing when she got to a crossed out line connecting two mechs, indicating what she thought had been an amicable break up. There was another line, with a question mark on it leading from the first mech to a third. "So you are saying that some of the mechs I see 'getting it on' in obvious ways may not even be 'with' each other when it comes to other things?"

Mikaela nodded. "Partly. At least that's a good start."

"So Hound and that quiet one - Trailbreaker? - didn't recently break up? Sam told me they were together, but suddenly it was nothing but Hound and the red Ferrari, cabled up all the time. I figured they were a new thing."

"Ferrari's name is Dino," Mikaela explained. "He was badly injured in Chicago - in stasis when Hound and Trailbreaker arrived. Dino's primary code donor, who was also his mentor, was cadre-bonded with those two, and Dino was pretty crushed when he found out that Mirage hadn't arrived with them. I'm sure Trailbreaker has been comforting Dino, too. He just tends to be a bit less out in the open than Hound, at least if humans are about."

"Wait," Carly said, placing the stylus firmly on the projection table. "So you're telling me that Dino's... uncles? step-dads? are comforting him by shagging the hell out of him?"

"Comforting and reconnecting, and I'm sure the comfort goes both ways. You can't impose human family relationships or incest taboos on an alien mechanical species, and I'm not even sure you can really call it shagging," Mikaela said, a bit more sharply than she'd intended, considering the months of confusion she'd had when she first began trying to parse out the intricate web of Autobot relationships. "If Mirage were to turn up tomorrow, Dino would probably reconnect with him in the exact same way."

Carly's eyes widened, then shook her head, "Okay, aliens, I get it." She picked up the stylus and labeled the designations correctly, changing the line between Hound and Trailbreaker to blue, connecting them each to Dino with green. Then she added Mirage, and a magenta line leading to Dino, plus blue lines to Hound and Trailbreaker. "So Dino's mentor isn't dead? The way you talked about him, I assumed..."

"They don't know," Mikaela said sadly, and quickly programmed a stylus of her own. She leaned over Carly's shoulder to tap the blue lines, turning the ones that led to Mirage into a hatch marks. "For a while I thought that when a bond severed, it meant the other mech was gone. But Ratchet explained that sometimes extreme trauma will short circuit a bond - sort of a defense mechanism, to keep from causing too much feedback along the connections. He seemed to think this was especially likely to happen in Mirage's case, but I'm not quite sure why."

"So either way, it isn't good. No wonder they need comforting," Carly said quietly.

"Yeah," Mikaela said, putting down her stylus and grimacing. "My understanding is that Hound and Trailbreaker were both hoping they'd either find Mirage or at least find answers when they got to earth. So yeah, there's comfort going on, and probably the familiarity of reconnecting with someone who shares a great deal of coding with their missing partner."

"So, is Dino... going to bond with them now, too?"

"Not unless their cadres decide to merge," Mikaela said, grabbing her stylus again. She quickly drew blue lines between Dino and two others who were already on the diagram (in completely different quadrants), adding their appropriate designations.

"With... Jolt and Arcee?" Carly said, completely shocked. "I've never even seen any of them together."

Mikaela shrugged, "Bondmates don't have to be in physical proximity to be intimate, though you can sure as hell bet that when they are, things sizzle - literally. The radiation would do us in, so we don't see that kind of interfacing." She gave Carly a sly and calculating look. "Hound does amazing holograms. You could ask him to render a memory file of one of his merges with Trailbreaker if you want to see what it's like."

Carly whirled around to face the other woman. "Oh, like that wouldn't seem completely mental! Going up to a mech I hardly know and asking him to show me his personal pornography collection."

Mikaela smirked, her eyes narrowed slightly in friendly challenge. "You're thinking in human. Besides, Hound loves us organic-types and anything having to do with earth, and he's as patient as they get when it comes to answering questions. Sharing pleasant memory files is totally normal for them. Just a way of... getting to know someone better."

"I think I'll pass... at least for now... until curiosity gets the better of me," Carly said, her face turning red. She quickly swung back around to stare at the mist screen again. "Okay, don't tell me the rest. Not yet. I want to see if I can figure it out." Her attention was drawn to a solitary pair on the bottom right outer quadrant of the diagram, seemingly isolated from the rest. "At least I know about Beachcomber, and... was the submarine Seasplash? They must be together. I've never seen them cabled with anyone else."

"Maybe," Mikaela said carefully, leaning over to change the line between them to immaculate white. "I get the impression those two even confuse the mechs."


	2. Chapter 2

Trailbreaker waited by the boat ramp, scanning his surroundings and monitoring the interactions between Colonel Lennox and the two Department of Energy representatives. Most of the conversation took place between Lennox and the female representative. Both were leaning against the gunmetal grey Ford Superduty's bumper on either side of his adaptive extension that was normally compressed within his camper shell along with his other shield emitters. It was currently configured as a boat trailer for Seaspray. The male stood somewhat awkwardly next to the trailer's fender.

::_Ahoy the shore!_:: came Beachcomber's comm just as Trailbreaker located the two aquatic mechs on his short range sensors and pinged them with his location. ::_How goes it, Trailbreaker?_::

::_Just getting a read on the new liaisons. One is a nuclear engineer, and will be very helpful. She was an American representative at the Fukushima clean-up and will advocate for our involvement there as well if this goes well. The other is a political appointee, and is extremely paranoid. Lennox's heart rate goes up every time he says a word._::

::_More red tape?_:: Seaspray asked, disappointed modifiers lacing his glyphs. Aside from the solid and liquid radionuclide waste they would be processing, there was a veritable Distiller feast of hexavalent chromium, carbon tetrachloride, lead, mercury, and thousands of other chemicals on the site. If they ever _got_ to the site.

::_He seems to be most concerned about us selling weapons grade plutonium or chemical compounds to terrorist organizations and rogue states,_:: Trailbreaker responded flatly.

::_By the time we're done, there won't even be plutonium, or any compound humans would recognize. But I suppose his type is paid to be paranoid,_:: Beachcomber said almost fondly. ::_Seaspray will win him over. He always does._::

::_And Hound will help,_:: Trailbreaker added. ::_Speaking of which, he sends his apologies. He is meeting with Hanford's community advisory committee._::

::_And probably having far more fun with them than should be legal,_:: Beachcomber said. Hound's relaxed disposition and adopted country drawl seemed to instantly endear him to the humans he interacted with, much as Seaspray's natural playfulness and fascination with alien species of all kinds did.

"Here they come," Lennox suddenly announced, rapping his fist against Trailbreaker's thick armor, likely for the benefit of the other humans. He'd lived and fought alongside the mechs long enough to have a feeling for their sensor ranges. The DOE representatives quickly moved away, perhaps expecting Trailbreaker to back the trailer down the ramp and into the water.

"I'm sure they won't mind taking a stretch first," Trailbreaker commented, not making any move to engage his engine, noting the way the male representative flinched (yet again) when he spoke. He knew intimidation would be a constant issue with many of the humans, one he would need to work hard to overcome. By their standards, he was one of the more intimidating appearing mechs, and his naturally quiet demeanor at times made him seem even more alien and threatening to them. Fortunately, Hound's charm helped smooth the way for both of them.

Turning his sensors to the water, he observed with fascination as the two aquatic mechs transformed when they reached the shallows. True hydroformers like Seaspray, and even amphibious mechs like Beachcomber, were extremely rare, and they were the first Trailbreaker had met in the metal.

The two small mechs gave the humans friendly waves. Water drained from their frames and into the sandy riverbank, and a vibrating shiver ran through their armor plates to shake off the rest.

"Beachcomber, Seaspray, this is Dr. Kyoko Tanaka and Mr. Sean Weaver," Lennox said.

"The new DOE liaisons," Beachcomber said with a smile. The nine foot tall minibots needed to stoop very little to be closer to their level.

Trailbreaker continued to remain silent, observing as the two smaller mechs interacted so easily with the humans. While all Cybertronians were highly adaptive, colonial mechs like the two from Aqueous made assimilation an art form. Even on worlds without a dominant sapient species, their ability to make other lifeforms feel at ease was an asset.

"Nice to meet you both," Seaspray was saying as he held out his spindly six-digit hand. Weaver awkwardly stepped back while Dr. Tanaka's eyes widened as she took the oddly delicate looking appendage.

"And you as well," she said in a slightly breathless tone. "You're Seaspray, right?"

"Yes, and this is Beachcomber."

"I understood that Cybertron was a completely honeycombed metal world. I was surprised to find out that you had water-going forms, or did you adopt those for earth?" she asked, reluctantly letting go of Seaspray's complex hand, but not backing away.

"Neither of us were actually ever online on Cybertron," Beachcomber explained.

"We were designed for an organic planet where eighty-five percent of the surface was covered in ocean, and were transported there in stasis on a colony seed ship. Earth is very home-like to us," Seaspray added.

"You colonized earth-like worlds?" Weaver asked sharply, his arms crossed and his posture stiff.

"We colonized nearly every type of world," Beachcomber said, "but we were very careful not to colonize worlds where more advanced lifeforms such as yourselves were in the process of emerging or had emerged, or where our models indicated that our presence might interfere with such life evolving in the future."

"Until you decided to invade this one," Weaver challenged back.

"Earth was never a colony," Seaspray said in a gentle tone. Trailbreaker noted that he very deliberately did not get into the more defensive human's personal space, but lowered himself subtly, to appear even less threatening. "It was placed on the interdiction list the first time it was surveyed. I know that seems hard to believe, with a history of repeated contacts. And considering what your world has gone through, I cannot say I blame you. But we are here only as long as the welcome remains."

The representative glared, and then muttered about needing to get back to the cleanup headquarters, at which Lennox sighed and Trailbreaker opened his doors. Dr. Tanaka gave the two standing mechs an apologetic look over her shoulder, to which Beachcomber mouthed 'don't worry about it," and winked an optic.

Seaspray scanned the protometal-threaded trailer before getting into position. As he transformed, he almost seemed to spill himself into it. His docking cables locked on to keep him secure, and Trailbreaker could feel the touch of the hydroformer's unusually powerful field, relaxing and widening, vibrating comfortably within the sphere of his own rather than held tightly compressed.

It was an oddly pleasant and comfortable feeling he was familiar with because of Beachcomber. While the Distiller did not accept overtures to interface, Beachcomber seemed to want to share field space in an extremely familiar manner. The sensation was pleasant, in both Beachcomber's and now Seaspray's case, even if highly unusual from mechs he hardly knew and hadn't even crossed cables with.

"All ready," Seaspray called out as Beachcomber transformed into his terrestrial mode. ::_Thanks for the lift, Trailbreaker,_:: the hydroformer added, gratitude and affection brightening the edges of his glyphs.

::_It is my pleasure,_:: Trailbreaker responded, slightly surprised at the level of affection, but equally warm. ::_You were very patient with that human. He has been testing my composure all day, and I've hardly spoken a word with him._::

::_They have every right to be suspicious of us. When I remember that, it helps,_:: Seaspray explained. ::_And when he sees what your shield generators are capable of, he'll come around._::

Trailbreaker couldn't help but notice the shiver that passed through Seaspray's frame and field when the little Distiller mentioned his shield generators. It was... fascinating.

* * *

"If I collect another micron, I won't have room for what is coming in today!" Beachcomber complained with good humor as Hound pointed out yet another pocket he'd detected with his olfactory sensors. The amphibious mech's mineral storage blocks were at three quarters capacity, just from casually collecting the stray materials scattered everywhere on the site. On top of that, today they were going to be processing the entire contents of one of the largest carbon steel storage tanks - hopefully their final demonstration prior to increased free rein in the cleanup.

The four mechs were making their way on pedes toward the small rise concealing area 200, where capped and buried storage tanks held the majority of the United States' high level nuclear waste. There they would meet with a group of scientists, officials, and a small number of the press.

They had some time to spare before the demonstration was due to start, so they were making no effort to hurry. All of the mechs usually liked humans, genuinely enjoyed their company, but being in close contact with that much organic curiosity (and paranoia) for so long wore on the equilibrium of even the most patient of their kind.

"Can I tempt ya with some Fermium-257?" Hound asked, his tone playfully suggestive.

"Oh Primus, Buddha and Mother Mary!" Beachcomber threw up his hands and detoured to the spot where Hound had indicated the few molecules of the extremely rare isotope. ::_I'm going to burst after today,_:: he privately sent to Seaspray.

::_We could make a trip to base to unload,_:: Seaspray suggested innocently, as playful as Hound. That was last way either of them wanted to make more room. As long as the two larger mechs agreed to the courting protocols when he and Beachcomber proposed them, (and didn't take too long deciding to do so), it wouldn't be necessary.

Beachcomber did not have a comeback. His attention was riveted to Hound as the scout humorously related the tale of Trailbreaker's latest round of shield testing at the hands of the nervous scientists. As had been happening with increased frequency over the past lunar cycle, Seaspray found himself walking close to the shielding specialist, who gave him a friendly 'Primus have mercy,' shrug as Hound's story reached its crescendo.

The Distillers had opted to spend the demonstration phase of the project getting to know the two larger mechs better, discerning which they were most drawn to and whether preliminary binary attractions would form. These most certainly had, at least on Seaspray and Beachcomber's part. Hound and Trailbreaker, as was typical of their build, seemed to have an 'all of the above' approach in matters of attraction. As Maggie Madsen had once joked, the majority of the Autobots seemed to favor the 'all you can eat buffet'.

The two Distillers had been too busy with the humans to make any sort of formal courting proposal, though. There had been plenty of flirting from all the parties, but diplomacy, highly monitored testing, and demonstrations had taken up the bulk of their time over the first month. Hound and Trailbreaker both needed more time in recharge than their more efficient colleagues as well. Now that they were (hopefully) entering the second phase of the project, there would be more time to broach the topic.

The two Distillers wanted far more than the _topic_ broached. Their own interfacing had become far more intense and physical than their normally gentle exchanges of memory and pleasure. A charge ran through Seaspray's protoform, centering in his tanks as he recalled the previous night. Beachcomber had audaciously stroked open Seaspray's dorsal channel aperture. He'd let his talons ghost there, swirling and teasing the sensitive protometal within while sharing searing memories of the first time he'd opened to Sandstone's siphon.

Seaspray stumbled over nothing, trying desperately to focus on what Trailbreaker had just said to him. At least, he thought Trailbreaker had said something. The big mech was looking down at him expectantly, having supported him with a burst of his shield when he'd stumbled.

"Are you sure you are up to this?" Trailbreaker asked gently again. Seaspray realized they had just crested the hill and come within line of sight of the partially unearthed tank number seven. The haz-mat suited humans gathered there were looking at them expectantly. "You seem really distracted. Maybe we should take a break, go back to base and have Ratchet take a look at your systems."

"I'm fine," Seaspray assured him hastily. "There are just so many resources here. I'll be better when I can actually start processing them. My coding is going a bit wonky with all the delays."

"You're sure?" Trailbreaker asked, with all the gruff concern of a mech who was a guardian in both coding and spark.

"I am, but thank you for looking out for me," Seaspray said, drawing his field far tighter than he wanted to. He just wasn't sure his systems were capable of walking and mingling fields with Trailbreaker at the same time any longer. Even the most casual brush from the large mech had him needing to actively block his dorsal and sternal channels from irising open beneath his armor.

"Of course. Promise you'll tell me if something... changes, okay?" Trailbreaker said softly as they approached the humans.

Yes, 'distracted' was pretty much the norm now. The whole site was a distiller paradise, and he was in the company of a powerful, companionable, and protective Aegismech. The end products of the feast of resources surrounding them would do amazing things for Trailbreaker's systems and efficiency, and the coded need to share that bounty sent surges through Seaspray's systems. He found himself constantly scanning the large mech, making tiny adjustments to his tank processing protocols in anticipation of Trailbreaker's needs.

As far as Seaspray's systems and code were concerned, he was already courting, and there was no reason to hold back any longer. But there was the small matter of, oh, actually communicating that fact, and finding out if his intended Aegis _wanted_ to explore a partnership once he understood the full implications of Distiller courting and bonding protocols.

Seaspray had never courted before, had never needed to. He and Oceanus had been built for one another, bond coding already in place as was often the case for mechs bound for new colonies. In human terms, they had onlined as family, and sharing sparks had been as natural as sharing what was in his tanks. With Trailbreaker, there were so many unknowns. But what he did know was that he truly enjoyed the quiet mech's company, and that Trailbreaker seemed to have all the right impulses to be an outstanding Aegis. Despite a year of avoiding the issue, Seaspray wanted and needed a partner, desperately.

….

Hound was in his best, most charming form as he explained to the gathered humans what they would be doing in simplified (and Prowl-approved) terms. When he finished, Trailbreaker activated his shield generators to encompass the four mechs and the partially buried tank within a bubble that would protect the gathered humans from the high level waste within. The humans shifted nervously as the two larger mechs began unsealing the lid.

"Hold it, how do we really _know_ the grey one's shield things will work?" Weaver asked sharply, edging away from the shield.

"Trailbreaker was able to shield against a _neutrino_ beam," Dr. Tanaka explained, yet again, with no small amount of exasperation.

"I don't care if he can shield against laser beams; how do we really know?" Weaver countered. "And besides, didn't he say his shielding had a time limit? What if it fails before they're done?"

"The shielding required for this is rather simple," Trailbreaker paused to patiently explain (yet again). "It requires far less output than, say, shielding against a nuclear detonation. At my current levels, I can maintain this shield for a little more than seven hours."

"Will they be done by then?" Weaver asked shrilly, as though Hound had not just given a time estimate in his explanation.

"It should take us a little less than an hour to collect the problematic materials," Seaspray said.

"But you can observe from farther away, if it make you feel more comfortable," one of the other scientists suggested, gesturing at Hound and Trailbreaker to resume.

"Speaking of which, how will we even see what is going on in there?" Weaver complained as Trailbreaker pushed back the lid. The bubble that encompassed the four mechs and the tanks did not allow the humans to get close enough to see inside, not that the sludge would reveal much once Seaspray and Beachcomber entered it.

"Like this!" Hound said enthusiastically as he activated his hologenerator, rendering a perfect three dimensional image of the inside of the tank. He then filtered the image so the humans would actually be able to see what was happening within the thick, salt encrusted radioactive sludge.

The gathered scientists, officials and press corps watched in awe as first Seaspray then Beachcomber climbed directly into the tank, immersing themselves. Both of the distillers raised their armor scales as if in a luxurious stretch, but instead of smooth protoform and internal components, the motion revealed thousands upon thousands of tiny apertures from which their long, feathery collection fronds unfurled, like delicate metallic versions of salamander gills or barnacle cirri.

The actual number of toxic or dangerously radioactive particles in the pool was relatively small. The issue was separating them from their surrounding matrix. But most of those particles had been suspended in solution the previous week, when the mechs treated this tank with nanite scavengers. The tiny devices were coded to isolate the desired compounds and break covalent bonds as needed.

Now, collection was a simple matter of Beachcomber and Seaspray sieving out the fine particulate and breaking the substances down in their tanks. Even the rust on the inside of the tank was nearly gone. The entire process left behind nothing but an inert sludge, full of iron, phosphorus, and other elements too common to be worth collecting. Seaspray imagined it would make a handy fertilizer for the humans' crops.

Fortunately, the collection process did not require a great deal of concentration on Seaspray's part as he slowly walked through the tank, the movement of the thick and buoyant fluid over his fronds sending pleasurable shivers of charge through his protoform that only increased with the swirl of rich materials filtering into his tanks. He was keenly aware of Trailbreaker monitoring him from above, the bigger mech watching with avid fascination.

Seaspray indulged himself in several scans of Trailbreaker's forceshield. Trailbreaker was a mech engineered for protection and consumption, a siren song for an unbonded distiller. Those shields were impressive to be sure, but he could tell that Trailbreaker was running low on Iridium 191, and this pool was just full of that isotope.

Thoroughly absorbed with calculating just how much he'd be able to improve just this one aspect of Trailbreaker's power and efficiency, Seaspray nearly walked straight into Beachcomber. The two distillers straightened themselves out in a manner that hopefully looked graceful and purposeful to the watching humans. The reassuring comms they sent the two big mechs anxiously watching them were slightly more awkward.

Distractions aside, within an hour of the distillers initiating collection, Hound announced that his sensors could no longer detect toxic or radionuclide materials within the tank. In short, the four mechs had managed to fully process a tank of waste in less than a week from when they had treated it with the nanites.

"Amazing!" Dr. Tanaka proclaimed as the two distillers climbed out and stood within the shielding bubble while Hound and Trailbreaker sprayed solvent over them.

"Can you explain just why this is so amazing?" asked a member of the press corps. "Other than it being alien robots, of course."

"What they just accomplished would have taken us years, and the end result would have been vitrified substances - that means substances turned into glass - that, while not dangerous in terms of leaking, still would be highly radioactive and require long term storage. Seaspray and Beachcomber will be reprocessing those same materials for use in their own and others' systems, if I understand correctly, but without all of the dangerous waste that comes with our own reprocessing procedures. They reuse and recycle everything," she noted with obvious pride.

"Shouldn't the reprocessed plutonium be made available for our own reactors? I mean... it is _our_ waste," another reporter asked.

To the surprise of all, it was actually Weaver who answered that question. "The Autobots are saving the United States taxpayers an estimated seventy-five billion dollars in this clean up. Part of the agreement was that they would be able to use the materials in exchange. You can be sure we will be monitoring them closely to ensure that the materials are used appropriately, for exactly what they have promised."

"But won't they be... leaking radiation when they come out from the shield?" one of the other reporters asked.

"Why don't y'all scan them with your geiger counters and see!" Hound happily announced, walking toward the humans as Trailbreaker brought down the shield.

The human scientists, after a collective gasp, did exactly that. Trust (or in some cases suspicion), but verify was the motto they seemed to live by as they descended on Beachcomber and Seaspray with their scanning equipment and unnecessary but comforting biohazard suits.

Hound and Trailbreaker exchanged a flash of emotions through their bond. The small Distillers had relatively thin armor, and nothing in the way of defensive weapons or energy shielding. It felt unacceptable to leave them undefended, knowing that a single human with a vendetta and the proper weapon could quickly do major damage.

Trailbreaker quietly placed himself behind the small mechs, forming small shielding bubbles that protected their vital systems without interfering with the humans poking and prodding. It was, frankly, a far more complicated and energy-taxing process than the earlier shielding efforts had been. Hound, just as quietly, extended a thick cable from his chest that linked him to his cadre mate's, shutting down several of his own systems so his spark could support some Trailbreaker's minor but necessary ones in a highly controlled manner.

….

It was late at night before they were finally cleared to return to the cleanup headquarters. The extremely efficient distillers, storage tanks filled to the brim with highly refined fuel, were jittery and wired. Hound and Trailbreaker were a different matter. Both had depleted themselves with the day's activities. When the scientists insisted on running the tests yet again at their main lab to assure themselves that Seaspray and Beachcomber's honeycombed tanks were still not leaking, the two large mechs actually growled in irritation - at a low enough register that it was only audible to the distillers.

::_Go recharge,_:: Beachcomber insisted. ::_You are halfway there on your pedes already. We will be fine._::

Trailbreaker and Hound had other ideas, sending terse negative glyphs.

"We understand your concerns, but you will need to wait until we've recharged," Trailbreaker told the humans in a tone that was soft but firm.

"But they are both still running at full capacity," one of the scientists objected. "The two of you can go."

Dr. Tanaka casually cleaned her glasses in a prearranged signal. She had been a solid ally when it came to reminding the other scientists that they were dealing with living beings, not robots.

"Their systems need time to process all that good stuff, and that requires recharge," Hound explained. It was a stretch of the truth, but he was not going to leave the lab without the two smaller mechs.

"Can't they recharge while we continue to test them?" the pushiest of the scientists persisted.

"How would you like someone prodding you while you sleep, Terry?" Dr. Tanaka asked sharply. "We'll run the tests one more time in the morning. You four go get some rest. Nine hundred hours tomorrow be okay?"

"Perfect, we'll report back then," Seaspray assured her, pleased that their human friend knew the larger mechs' recharge needs well enough to have calculated an appropriate length of time.

::_What would you two have done if they'd insisted?_:: Beachcomber asked as they walked toward the quonset hut where they were being housed.

::_Have Hound throw up a hologram around you that looked like one of my shields. My generators are depleted. I'd never hurt one of them, unless one of you was in danger, but they need to know that we have limits._:: Trailbreaker said firmly. ::_They know too much about your systems now to be left alone with you,_:: he added, his lack of recharge making him terse and grumpy.

Seaspray, his spark surging at the protective behavior directed toward him, just couldn't help himself and ran another scan. He pointedly ignored Beachcomber's cheeky comm asking him if it was his own version of a good night kiss.

* * *

They sat side by side as the bigger mechs recharged. Their oversized distiller sparks - large enough to power mechs three times their size - harmonizing their fields, meshing together as though they were one rather than two mechanisms.

They had been the other's primary companion for so long now.

They had never joined sparks, and yet were as close as any cadre-bonded mechs. Before Sandstone and Oceanus had extinguished, Seaspray and Beachcomber had always felt an echo of one another through their Aegis partners' bond. They had been cadre, in the distiller manner, since practically the time they had onlined.

Seaspray's long, spindly fingers reached out to interlace with Beachcomber's own; he leaned over and tilted his helm to rest it against their cojoined hands.

They did not need words. Without one another, both might have faded and extinguished long ago. They should not have been able to last even this long, in any kind of sane state, without the completion that came from an Aegis partner. It was their primary function, their reason for having a spark in the first place.

Tomorrow, they would take the next steps to initiate courting. They would not interface with one another again once they took that step, unless bonding failed to follow.

By Cybertronian standards, their coding was extreme to say the least.

They could not imagine being any different.

Non-Distillers in a similar situation might have spent the night in frantic merges or a grief-filled crossing of cables. For Seaspray and Beachcomber, it was enough to sit side by side, warmly content. If courting did lead where they hoped, they would once again know the echo of one another through the bond their Aegismechs shared. They would be cadre again, in spark and code as well as memory.

Beachcomber's free hand caressed Seaspray's helm, and then brushed along his back until he reached the tightly sealed channel, just below spark level between fins that shifted outward to provide better access. "Soon," he said, smiling, pinging his sonar to scan the tanks below Seaspray's oversized spark chamber. The acoustic vibrations were simultaneously soothing and stimulating for the full tanks.

Seaspray sat up, kneeling over Beachcomber's slender lap, his arms circling his fellow Distiller as their forehelms helms came together in a wash of electromagnetic affection. They could feel the excess energy swelling from within them, from synthagon so highly concentrated and pure that it was little different from AllSpark-sourced energon, now long gone.

It was strange. Once they were bonded again, or even had begun to formally court and actively tend their intended Aegis mechs, it was unlikely they would yearn for one another as they now did. It has always been more of a shared yearning for what they lacked. Much of their interfacing had been the deep sharing of memories.

They held the other's memories like precious isotopes or the rarest of elements. They shared them when most needed, striving to convince the each other for a brief moment that they were not alone.

As cables slipped easily into ports and consciousness past firewalls, they found themselves sharing memories of a different sort. This last time they interfaced, the memories shared would not be of massive mechs and armor blossoming open for the measured, welcome suction. They instead shared memories of one another, and the vorns upon vorns each had spent keeping the other whole.

Overload, when it came many hours later, was sweet and gentle, an expression, yet again, of hope.


	3. Chapter 3

They were working together to dismantle a decommissioned reactor core (fuel rods unfortunately long removed) when the distillers finally broached the topic. They were in the company of humans so much of the time. This was truly the first opportunity since Seaspray and Beachcomber had come to their own agreement on courting preferences.

Hound was using his sensors to detect minute deposits of the rare isotopes left over from reactor slagging, directing Beachcomber to the pockets he located. Trailbreaker was slicing off small sections of the radioactive core for Seaspray to dissolve and absorb even as he shielded the temporary breach they had created in the cocooning concrete.

"So, have both of you siphoned Bumblebee?" Beachcomber began conversationally, though Hound doubted he was anything but casual, considering the signals the little mech had been giving over the previous month and year. He was pretty sure he knew what was coming. He and Trailbreaker had contemplated the matter rather thoroughly during their discrete, well-shielded merges.

"I have," Hound replied with calculated ease. "With so many mecha on base, though, he finds it most efficient to simply let Ratchet harvest the synthegon and process it for others as needed beyond his cadre. Not that he says no if someone asks to siphon directly. But I partnered with him on a mission prior to your arrival, and... I was curious."

Beachcomber hummed his understanding of that. There were very few on base who weren't curious, though some were bolder than others in expressing it.

"Trailbreaker?" Seaspray asked, taking a slice of the reactor core from the grey mech. Tiny plates of armor on his hands flexed and cilia-like nanite injectors emerged to quickly begin eating away at the material.

"No. I have the mod, but I've never activated it. My systems burn through fuel so quickly, and it just seemed like a lot to ask of him when he's already fuelling his cadre. I already feel bad having to get extra rations."

"You don't need to apologize for your systems!" Seaspray objected. "You're amazing. I've never seen shield generators like yours. I'm... I'm actually surprised that they built you without a dedicated distiller. It would have made a lot of sense."

Trailbreaker flicked his armor in a slightly embarrassed gesture, examining the core to determine the location of his next slice. "Never really thought about it," he admitted. "I'd never even met a distiller before Bumblebee, and I didn't even realize he was one for quite a while. Just thought he was another spec ops minibot, with an unusually powerful field."

"Bumblebee is a different design than us," Beachcomber explained. "He was engineered multi-purpose. Distilling is his subfunction, rather than his primary. So even though he has the unusually large spark, it's supporting a bunch of systems that a distiller normally wouldn't have, like weapons, energy shielding, and a scout-class sensor suite."

"How does that impact his distiller function?" Hound asked, feeling frankly curious. Siphoning Bumblebee had been an amazing way to interface, and the synthegon was on par with some of the best high grade he'd ever tried when he'd been a guardian and guide for Towerling hunts.

"He only has two basic distillation tanks, and doesn't have nearly the same suite of collection apparati that we have," Seaspray explained. "It allows him to produce a fairly rich and system-cleansing synthegon, but he is limited in the types of raw materials he can collect."

"How many distillation tanks do the two of you have?" Trailbreaker asked, forgetting for the moment to slice the core.

"I have eleven, eight of which are devoted to synthegon and three to producing other fluids and materials," Beachcomber said, clearly pleased with himself.

"Primus! Eleven?" Hound exclaimed.

"Seaspray has even more," Beachcomber said with a hint of smugness. "His spark is the largest that can function in a minibot frame."

The thickness of the submarine's barrel shaped chest suddenly made more sense.

"Twenty-five tanks. I was engineered for a massive hydroformer - underwater miner and transport," Seaspray said with obvious pride. "About the same size as an Omega-class shuttle."

"Would you consider partnering with another Omega-class, then, like Skyfire?" Trailbreaker asked in a slightly cautious tone, wondering if that was the source of the multitude of mixed signals he seemed to be receiving from the hydroformer.

Even half-anticipating the answer, the bluntness took Trailbreaker by surprise.

"I want to partner with you, if you're willing. Partnering with you would mean that you could devote more of my resources to the other Autobots, if you chose to." Seaspray finished subsuming the slice he had been working on and deliberately shut his apertures, folding down his armor. He turned his full attention to Trailbreaker. Beachcomber and Hound looked on, no longer even pretending to work in the suddenly thick environment. "I could barely keep up with Oceanus," he rushed on, "and we even considered having him bond with a second Distiller if one became available. As it was, Sandstone and some of the other big mechs still shared resources with him, sometimes."

Trailbreaker had to reinitialize his vocalizer before he could speak. "So... what is it exactly that you are proposing?" he asked cautiously.

"A courting phase," Seaspray explained, moving deliberately into Trailbreaker's field space and enmeshing their fields so he could share the desire and willingness that came with his words. "A set period of time in which I grant you unrestricted siphoning privileges... in exchange for unbonded guardian status on your part. You will have the right to share any excess synthegon or any other materials I provide you - even take on extra storage tanks if you wish. While under your protection, my systems will respond to any fuel and materials requests your systems send me, whether intended for you or for others."

"And after that?" Trailbreaker asked, his own field fluctuating with flares of desire and more tightly reined reticence.

"If we both are willing, we would initiate an Aegis-Distiller bond," Seaspray explained, pinging both Trailbreaker and Hound with a condensed data packet that outlined the unusual form of bonding. "As you can see, I would formally join the remainder of your cadre as an unbonded member, similar to the coding the newly onlined have with their mentor's cadre. You would need to take on some Aegis-specific additions to your guardian protocols, which you will want to look carefully at. It is a rather... extreme form of guardian bonding."

Hound and Trailbreaker were quiet as they digested the packet.

"You mentioned a specific length of time. How long?" Hound finally asked, his own field cautiously extending to include Beachcomber as if in an unspoken question. The flare of Beachcomber's field was a quick and welcome response.

"However long we agree to," Seaspray explained. "The typical length of time for unbonded Distillers was a vorn... but we can consider a shorter or longer courting period if you'd like. My only request is that it..." he paused and looked at Beachcomber, realizing he was getting ahead of things.

"Be the same length as our courting period," Beachcomber explained, looking straight at Hound and flaring his field again. "Ditto on everything Seaspray said. I would like to grant you siphoning privileges and initiate courting, yesterday if possible," he said with obvious static on his vocalizer.

"Beachcomber's tanks are... we are going to need to report to base and unload tomorrow if you need time to decide. Which is fine," he added, giving Beachcomber a slight warning glare. "We gave ourselves a full month to consider making this proposition. You can't be expected to decide overnight."

"Longer, actually," Beachcomber added sheepishly. "Seaspray took nearly a year paddling around in the Pacific before he would even consider the courting options I'd been proposing."

"Well, you said you pretty much had your processors set on Hound the moment you met him, so _you_ didn't take much time," Seaspray teased.

They suddenly realized that they were being stared at with frank puzzlement.

"Just gonna say it," Hound started after a brief burst of comms with Trailbreaker. "Y'all act like bonded cadre, in every sense we can tell. We've got no objections to widening ours. We were originally six, and know for sure that we lost at least three of those early in the war. Maybe four if we ever learn what happened to Mirage," he added with a flare of pure grief in his field that had Trailbreaker quickly crossing over to him to put his hands on his bonded's shoulders in support.

"If you were any mechs other than Distillers, we'd already be courting you to merge cadres. Why aren't we just doing that?" Trailbreaker finished for him.

Seaspray and Beachcomber both slumped a little, their fields tightening reflexively at the question.

"Now don't be that way," Hound said, raising his hand and flaring his field widely to entice them both back. "It's just a question. We need to understand this if we're going forward."

"I know," Beachcomber explained. "It's just... not easy to explain because you are coded so differently. We distillers function best when - imprinted I guess you could say - on the spark of one mech. We were created to nurture and provide for a single Aegis. We were on a mostly empty colony world. We could go entire solar cycles without seeing any Cybertronian other than our Aegis. We're just not coded for the kind of wider bondwebs that are normal for you. It would feel..."

"Chaotic, stressful," Seaspray supplied. "I can't even imagine the pressure on my systems if I was trying to constantly care for and provide for the needs of an entire cadre. It just feels... totally different when doing that for one mech, even if he is actually passing on the needs of others to my systems." Seaspray explained, moving closer to Trailbreaker in an almost unconscious fashion, needing the security of that field again.

"We want to be a cadre with both of you," Beachcomber added, "and any others you are bonded with or choose to bond with in the future. Just... in the distiller way."

"And it won't bother you that Trailbreaker and I are interfacing regularly with others, even outside of cadre? Ours was never a closed system," Hound warned.

Both distiller's shook their helms vigorously in the negative, human gestures already firmly a part of their non-verbal repertoire. "It wouldn't even occur to us to do anything but support that," Beachcomber said.

"We are coded to care for and support your needs," Seaspray added. "You are coded for wider bondwebs and casual interfacing. It creates the social cohesiveness most mecha need. We share in that through you-"

"-but sharing in it directly is stressful for you, because of your caretaker coding," Trailbreaker finished, dropping his hands from Hound's shoulders and kneeling, deliberately reaching out to bring Seaspray close, feeling the shiver that ran through the little mech's frame as he did.

"Yes," Seaspray almost moaned.

"But there's more to it," Hound noted, crouching and likewise pulling Beachcomber close, shifting the smaller mech so his back was resting against to his abdomen. "You need an individual who is coded to protect you."

"We... we are small," Beachcomber admitted, his frame trembling at the contact, spark and field surging as his systems overrode his command that his channel remain shut. His armor remained in place, but beneath that thin plate, the aperture of his channel had fully spiraled open. "We're far more vulnerable than even the minibots who never had war mods. Almost all of our system resources are devoted to our distiller function. Even our scientific functions are really just a subsidiary."

"We were upset at first, by how Bumblebee's creators coded him," Seaspray added, leaning his helm against Trailbreaker's chest plates. "But he really is a different frameclass. He has the means to defend himself. And he only produces one form of synthegon. It isn't distilled to the specific requirements of an Aegis, just to the general needs of his cadre, or pretty much any mech."

"Would you... want that, too?" Hound asked, carefully keeping any tone of judgment out of his vocalizer as his hands ran up and down the smooth, thin armor scales on Beachcomber's chest, feeling the spin of the spark beneath with his scout-class sensors.

"We want to be what we are," Beachcomber said shakily, vocalizer glitching. "We want to be that for you, and still help the other Autobots, but _through_ you. We... we both examined the distillers who were held by the Decepticons before they were put in long-term stasis. We just..."

He couldn't finish. Hound encircled him tightly with his thickly armored arms. "They were coded like you are, yet had entire companies of mechs siphoning them... raping them."

Beachcomber nodded, sinking into the support behind him.

A soothing hum emanating from deep in Hound's chassis as he gathered Beachcomber closer. He had seen some of the visuals of the small mechs recovered from Decepticon outposts, stripped of even their minimal armor, limbs crushed, channel apertures no longer able to properly close. Their exposed protoforms had been distended in places and collapsed in others from the constant stress on their tanks.

"I'm not sure you can even begin to understand what that was doing to their systems and coding," Seaspray explained, his voice slightly muffled as he spoke into Trailbreaker's plating. "Distillers like us can't accept a siphon outside of bond without initiating courting protocols. So they were... their systems had to meet every one of those 'Con's needs, mechs who weren't their partners, weren't protecting them... mechs who were violating them, over and over again."

"No one is going to do that to you," Trailbreaker assured him, resting his helm against the one below his. "I would protect you even if I wasn't courting or bonded with you. Do you understand that?"

"You are a shielding specialist. You are an Aegis in the purest sense of the word," Seaspray agreed. "I want you... I want to make you even better at what you do, not just so you can protect me."

Trailbreaker tightened his grip around the small mech. "I accept your proposal to court. Hound and I don't need to discuss it further - we already have, extensively. We just needed to be sure we fully understood. We'll make sure the rest of our cadre understands - if Mirage does return to us or we widen our bondweb. And, for what it's worth, I already initiated guardian protocols for both of you, the first time the humans were crawling all over you with their ridiculous scanning equipment. Hound did as well."

"I'm sorry we can't do this the way... the way you both would prefer," Beachcomber said, shifting to face Hound, reaching up to touch one of his broad cheek spars.

"Now don't you go apologizing for your function and coding. It clearly suits both of your sparks," Hound said firmly, resting his hand very deliberately on the armor above Beachcomber's dorsal channel. "Now... are we going to be able to finish up this reactor today, or should we seal it back up and find a quiet spot to relieve some of the pressure in your tanks? I shorted out the humans' cameras as soon as things got cozy in here, but I'm pretty sure their security types are going to start screaming if I don't reinitialize them soon."

Beachcomber's entire frame was vibrating with need. "Let's reseal this place and get out of here. Tell the humans... tell them Seaspray and I need to unload our tanks before we can finish. It's true enough."

* * *

"Like this?" Trailbreaker asked, leaning his back against the canyon wall, his legs stretched in front of him.

"Perfect," Seaspray said, climbing up onto Trailbreaker's broad lap, his back to the bigger mech's thick-armored chest. His fins moved to the side and shrank inward to allow his dorsal arch to rest against Trailbreaker's ventral plates. It was not a neat fit. They had no coding yet to guide their components in the intricate jigsaw that would interlock armor and bring bare protometal into intimate contact.

Trailbreaker brought an arm around the smaller mech, a single blunt finger tracing the components of Seaspray's chest and collar plating. "So... how does this work?" he asked, gentle and uncertain. He knew the basics of the siphoning procedure, but that knowledge seemed vastly inadequate now.

Seaspray vibrated slightly, his frame already hot and his field flushed with need, but he remained firmly in control. "How about I initialize your siphoning system to my specs? It'll make things easier." He slid his interface cable into Trailbreaker's hand.

"Stay connected... guide me through this?" Trailbreaker asked, rolling the sensitive connector pins between his fingers. "I'm afraid I'll hurt you," he admitted.

"YES... no... I mean of course!" Seaspray arched back into the source of that stimulation, his vocalizer already static-laced with his growing charge. "You won't hurt me, Trailbreaker. I'll be with you every step of the way."

Trailbreaker was vividly aware of just how small and unshielded Seaspray was. He was going to be penetrating deep into the Distiller's protometal, to tanks that rested _within_ the extra-large chamber housing the oversized spark that powered the final distillation process. It was an intensely physical process, and Trailbreaker's bulky warrior frame was not engineered for anything approaching gentleness. The memory files of the rescued Distillers haunted him as he contemplated what he was about to do.

Something of his trepidation must have showed in his field.

"I'm safe with you," Seaspray assured the big mech again, his field radiating sincerity as he tipped his helm up and back enough to look up at the warm, ruby visor. The digits of one of his spindly-fingered hands wrapped the interface cable beneath Trailbreaker's own blunt fingers, urging it toward the shielding mech's thoracic port. Smoothly, both mechs guided the connectors in.

A tremor ran through Trailbreaker's frame as he felt the foreign but welcome presence on the periphery of his awareness, pulsing with need... and something more... like a flowing, liquid-feeling trust swirling with commitment to his well being. It was easy to lower his defenses to that presence; he needed to show vulnerability to someone who would be so vulnerable to him.

::_You feel so good,_:: Seaspray assured him directly through the connection, his soothing mental touch easing more deeply into Trailbreaker's systems, knowing exactly where to go. Trailbreaker monitored with fascination as Seaspray deftly adjusted the coding there. How was the smaller mech processing so calmly? It contrasted with the hot, vibrating frame he was holding to himself.

::_I'm not. Just blocking most of my feedback. This first cycle, it will be intense enough just with your own sensory input._::

::_Understood,_:: Trailbreaker replied. He did not want to risk anything that could potentially lose him control.

::_Relax. I'm made for this,_:: Seaspray again assured him, sending a final burst of code that initialized the siphoning system.

Trailbreaker felt the components come online, his HUD informing him of the obvious fact that a Series 11 Colonial Hydroformer Distillation Unit was currently in the proper docking position, and would he like to initiate that procedure? A secondary script informed him that the Distillation Unit had both a dorsal and sternal channel, but that a position shift would be required to siphon the latter.

"Two?" Trailbreaker queried, intensely curious at the configuration. Why would a mech coded so stringently for dyadic bonds have a frame that could accommodate two siphons?

Seaspray laughed. "Two siphons - from one very large mech." He unblocked just enough to share the memory of a perfect, tight fit, surrounded by a mass of pearlescent protometal as he docked _beneath_ enclosing armor. Trailbreaker groaned at the vivid flashes of recollection: blossoming open to the two siphons, the sensation as they slowly delved their way within the most vulnerable and sensitive parts of his frame.

"Primus almighty, Seaspray," Trailbreaker groaned, charge rocketing through his systems at the sensory spill from that memory. Inadequacy colored the forefront of his emotive stream. He could not, would not ever be the kind of partner Seaspray had been originally built for.

Seaspray's touch was suddenly in his processors, easing and soothing. ::_You are just right for me in all the ways that matter. I want you... want to share with you. Please. You are unique. 'Apples and oranges', as the humans would say._::

Trailbreaker sank into that assurance, allowing it to overcome his hesitation as he signaled his siphon to activate. His arms tightened reflexively around the smaller mech as he strengthened the bubble of defensive shielding already set in place.

First there was a simple signal, a burst of code from his siphoning unit directed at Seaspray's dorsal channel and the tanks deep within. The smaller mech vented as his armor shifted in response, just below spark-level on his dorsal ridge. Tiny scales of plating moved aside and away in a myriad of incremental shifts. Already initialized to Seaspray's configuration, the armor midway up Trailbreaker's ventrum simultaneously did the same, shifting and interlocking with the smaller mech's plating until protometal met protometal in a wash of charge and tingling pleasure. Heat radiated from Seaspray's wide-open channel.

Trailbreaker could not help but to push against that silken silver, charge racing between them as pleasure nodes lit and sent fire throughout their frames. Protometal-contact was a rare luxury in wartime. Trailbreaker could indulge in that pleasure with somewhat greater frequency- he had the means to protect his lovers, at least when fuel was not scarce. But even for him, this was exquisite. He could have lost himself in those sensations were he not so keenly aware that more was coming, the allure of the unknown.

Seaspray shook, his legs clamping down on the lap he straddled, his hands gripping Trailbreaker's arms, digging into the seams of his armor.

The smooth hydraulic sound of the siphon emerging from deep within was enough to hone Trailbreaker's focus. Components sought one another in polarized attraction, the solid outer layer of his siphon socketing Seaspray's aperture with an audible snick. Trailbreaker's vocalizer shorted in a burst of static, and Seaspray let out a small keen - both channel and siphon were sensitive, the metal skin of the components thin and marvelously sensor-dense.

So much... too much, especially at the first rush of heat and aroma flooding the open channel, giving Trailbreaker his first taste of what lay within. Something deep within his coding roared to life, demanding to rush in and plunder what was so willingly offered.

It was so new, so startling and primal he almost backed away.

Seaspray was suddenly there again, though his presence was far less calm than before. Trailbreaker had the impression of deeply coded urges driving the Distiller every bit as much. ::_Slow. It's a normal feeling. Just... go slow. So much better for us both._::

Trailbreaker gave a static hiss of acknowledgment, taking a klik to collect himself. He steadied himself on the sound of his and Seaspray's fans, the suck and push of atmosphere from their hard working ventilations, synchronizing with one another. Their fields fell into concordance, docked frames behaving as a single unit. The sensory input eased a little as they became accustomed to the connection. Trailbreaker began queuing up the commands to initiate the next step.

Seaspray quickly interjected a dazed glyph, a request to pause. ::_What's wrong?_:: Trailbreaker transmitted, instantly halting the process.

::_Potent_:: Seaspray warned, his glyphs bit fuzzy and erratic. ::_I...it will be potent. Especially this first time. Slow... go slow or you'll end up offline while you fuel. Don't want to miss anything... want to be together. Set... set your siphoning rate now,_:: he added, gaining coherence. ::_Five SMVs with each suction burst, three nanokliks between. Then a full rest for five kliks every thirty SMVs_.::

Trailbreaker flashed a desperately grateful glyph at the guidance, his newly initialized system taking the instructions easily, though he still triple checked the settings before proceeding. He vented twice, then signaled the inner layer of his siphon to engage, rumbling deeply as he first broached Seaspray's aperture and starbursts of pleasure informed him just how sensor-rich the inner portions of his siphon were.

The channel around him contracted tightly at first, then blossomed open. The Distiller gave desperate sounding trills accompanied by grateful glyphs that urged him onward, seemingly in contradiction to all the earlier warnings to go slow. Trailbreaker forced himself to be cautious, despite the urging. Slowly, slowly he inched his way in, the semi-liquid protometal of his siphon thickly flowing into the smaller mech, who continued to trill and warble, limbs twitching. It was a sensation unlike anything Trailbreaker had ever felt. He gave a low, throbbing groan as his charge blazed, relays broadcasting the dizzying array of sensations - EM, heat, exquisite pressure, intermingled with olfactory and even gustatory bursts. He could taste Seaspray... taste the dizzying fumes of the fuel awaited him within his lover.

Seaspray convulsed in his lap and around his siphon ::_All for you,_:: Seaspray urged, glyphs adorned with pleading and promise.

It did not take long to go deeper than anyone other than a medic should be in another's inner workings, yet it felt so perfect, so right. So much heat, and incendiary pleasure of protometal components merging, and then finally, he reached the perimeter of Seaspray's tank chamber. He could feel the smaller mech's spark, cycling just above - a waveform of warmth so close it felt like he was up against the chamber itself. His tip nudged against the rim of the small access port, the valve already irised open to one of the tanks that had shifted into place.

Through the sensors of his siphon he could smell the ozone surges of spark flare from just above, taste the energies that powered the Distiller's small frame, all that overabundance diverted to the process that transformed ordinary materials into something unfathomably pure and rich. Coronal tendrils of that energy enveloped the tanks that held the final distillation, enveloped _him_. And despite pleasure that flooded him, Trailbreaker was struck both by the profound vulnerability, and the shadow of such miraculous engineering.

He increased the power to his shielding bubble by a factor of thirty percent.

A quick molecular shift and the siphon hardened into a tube, tightly merged with the surrounding channel as though they were now a single mechanism. Their coupling washed charge to and fro between their frames. Tiny spines flowered open on his siphon's tip, locking onto the waiting tap.

"Oh Primus, Seaspray, oh slag... so good," Trailbreaker murmured, hands splayed out across the small mech's ventrum, exerting gentle pressure as though he could possibly press deeper, sink more of himself into this union.

Seaspray was beyond words; even partially blocked their hardline connection was bleeding impressions of luminous pleasure and phosphorescent need. Trailbreaker tightened his grip incrementally, desperately thankful he had already adjusted the siphoning rate as he initiated the suction bursts. Stuttered liquid blazes of power, heat, and burning pleasure rushed through his siphon into his ventrum, straight to his spark. The synthegon- no, energon, his sensors insisted, blindingly pure and potent - hit every system at once, tripping him into a massive, system-wide overload.

….

Trailbreaker's systems reset with a groan deep from his chassis, plasma lightning still dancing over both his and Seaspray's frames. His chronometer showed that he had four kliks of the rest cycle before suction began again. Primus. How many cycles would there be?

Seaspray was still offline. Trailbreaker wished he could somehow hold him even more closely, safe within his own armor as Oceanus had. So much power and vulnerability, wrapped in such a small frame.

It was... like fuelling from the AllSpark itself, or at least how Trailbreaker envisioned those long gone sacramental rites. Only a Prime's systems and spark were capable of withstanding the purity of energon sourced directly from the AllSpark. That energon had needed to be diluted and processed before it was distributed to the masses for ordinary, or even ritual use. Injuries and wartime neglect of his systems had fragmented so many of his memories of that time, but from what he could remember, that fuel was far more powerful and purifying than anything he'd had since.

Until now.

Mirage had shared memory files of the rare distillations he'd indulged in as an alphamech, spiced, aged, and perfectly balanced. Seaspray's was purer, far more potent... sweet beyond Trailbreaker's ability to articulate. It was a revelation. Trailbreaker would never, ever call what Seaspray produced 'synthegon'. The dichotomy felt false, even sacrilegious. This was energon more pure than he'd ever been blessed to receive before, as if the Distiller's spark were itself a conduit of the AllSpark.

How the Pit was it possible this mech had chosen Trailbreaker, of all mechs, to be his intended Aegis? He should bond with the Prime himself.

But no, Seaspray had chosen _him_, had proposed to court and then bond with him, with fidelity protocols alien to Trailbreaker's coding. His to protect, to safeguard against abuse or misuse. His to steward, a generous font of resources to share, but never to take for granted.

A sacred trust; one of which Trailbreaker was far from worthy. Somehow, he vowed, somehow he would rise to meet it.

He could just begin to fathom what Oceanus and Sandstone felt when the Decepticons had arrived to plunder Aqueous of its most valuable resources - the lengths the two must have gone to in order to keep the two Distillers safe and hidden!

Trailbreaker felt the affectionate scan he had become so accustomed to over the previous month as Seaspray reset with a croon of contentment. Very shortly the fire would resume.

"Mmm," the little mech warbled drunkenly. "Thirty SMVs and you're already running so much more efficiently." Seaspray's spindly fingers ran sensuously over the arms that wrapped him.

Trailbreaker rumbled in agreement as he ran an internal diagnostic, his own digits tracing Seaspray's lower ventral seams. The miniscule amount of rare fuel had purified the remainder of his synthegon, allowing it to conduct his spark's power to all of his systems with a noticeable improvement. He could feel the difference, like he was suddenly lighter, emerging from a pocket of heavy gravity.

"You are beyond any glyphs I have in my linguistic files," Trailbreaker murmured into the smaller mech's helm, retracting his mask to place his mouth components against it as though he could fuel in that way, too. Seaspray reached back, caressing one of Trailbreaker's cranial ridges.

"Won't be as intense this time... can ride the sensations more," Seaspray promised just as Trailbreaker's siphon reactivated. This time it did feel slower, and the large mech found he could just barely process beyond the raw fire of each burst. His gustatory sensors cataloged each rare isotope and precious compound Seaspray had added. He hadn't realized how desperate his systems were for exactly what Seaspray was providing until the elements were eagerly absorbed from his energon conduits. Overload the second time was more like a tsunami than the previous concussive blast - just as inevitable, but something he could ride for a brief moment, before the flood overwhelmed him.

Each cycle that followed was gentler than the last. On the fourth, Seaspray was able to share his own sensations without tripping either of them offline. On the sixth, Trailbreaker's cable finally crossed the Distiller's own to complete the feedback loop. He slowed the final two cycles down to a languorous pace so they could float together amid the sensations, a lazy wash of bliss intermingled.

* * *

Hound was lounging in Sol's warm rays, a recharging Beachcomber sprawled across his lower extremities, arms wrapped around his abdominal plates when he felt a questioning stir through the mostly blocked bond. He extended a lazy invitation, and soon his bondmate was making his way toward them, reeling slightly. Trailbreaker lowered himself to the ground, cradling his small lover to himself. Like Hound, Trailbreaker's field was flush with unheard of power levels. It was gluttonous... glorious.

Seaspray had not stirred in transit. The two Distillers recharged far less often due to their constant excess charge, but apparently being siphoned put them under deeply. Hound reached over and gently stroked Seaspray as Trailbreaker settled the recharging Distiller onto his lap. Bonded and coded as they were, Hound and Trailbreaker's protective impulses and affection could not help but to extend in full measure to both Distillers.

Hound fully unblocked his end of the bond, and was met with a flood of overwhelmed awe, gratitude and trepidation. 'Gobsmacked' was an appropriate word - the humans had such delightful ways to describe befuddled states. Hound was little calmer, though he'd had more time to adjust to his newly fueled state.

"Primus," Trailbreaker murmured, leaning over to rest his helm against Hound's with a quiet thunk.

"I know," Hound said, chuckling.

They had blocked the bond this first time, both out of respect for their new lovers and also to allow the one to guard without distraction while the other siphoned. Seaspray and Beachcomber had assured them it wasn't necessary, but it had just seemed the right thing to do. There was still the chance of an odd Decepticon around who refused to follow Megatron back to Cybertron, and there were likely Seekers included in that category. While the remote, narrow canyon they had chosen was quite sheltered, vigilance was still critical.

Hound and Beachcomber had coupled first, the amphibious mech's systems having been more stressed. Trailbreaker and Seaspray had been out of sight, but not sensor range while Hound and Beachcomber consummated their courting agreement, a memory file he had tagged, carefully partitioned and duplicated to prevent its corruption. The flush of raw power in Hound's systems sent a shiver of remembered pleasure through his newly efficient systems.

Hound's sensor net, set to an automatic cycle, had done the guarding while Seaspray and Trailbreaker had taken their turn. It was a good thing multiprocessing streams were not an issue for him, as he had spent that time in near hysterical laughter with Beachcomber, sharing memories that may not have been nearly as funny had he not been so overcharged. They had laughed equally as hard at how loud his normally quiet bondmate was being around the canyon's bend. Not that Hound had been any quieter. Then in the middle of the laughter, Beachcomber had abruptly gone offline, though he had fortunately warned Hound earlier it was likely to happen.

That had made Hound laugh even harder.

No wonder there was so little wildlife currently around to observe. Fine biologist he was, scaring the natives.

Hound enjoyed these wild places the most, but he did look forward to coupling in the security of base, so he and Trailbreaker could share in the way that felt so natural to them, even if they couldn't share these particular lovers in a more physical manner.

"Spray has two channels," Trailbreaker offered, obviously knowing the direction of Hound's processing. "Can you imagine..."

"Slag, but that would be good. No rules against fantasy," Hound said, knowing precisely what images the two would share the next time they interfaced.

There were no stipulations against the sharing of memories with other lovers, either, though Hound somehow doubted that he would do so outside of cadre, with careful protocols to keep those memories locked within their own bondweb. While Hound trusted his fellow Autobots with his very spark, he suddenly was not as sure he could trust them as fully with the spark that had been entrusted to him. Memories tended to circulate. They were the unselfish glue that bound their faction together. Yet, even among the Autobots, there were mecha whose social coding could use an overhaul and became obsessed about experiencing firsthand what had been given in memory.

Then there was that most dire possibility. Rape was rare, but not unheard of among his faction mates, a symptom of processors brutally fragmented by war, in Hound's opinion. The line that had separated Autobots from Decepticons had become far too thin, especially in the dark years that had followed Prime's departure to search for the AllSpark.

Hound knew he would deactivate any Autobot who tried as surely as he would a Decepticon. The brutal certainty of that fact disturbed him enough that Trailbreaker sent a soothing impulse across their bond frequency, wrapping a broad arm around an equally broad shoulder.

"What have we gotten ourselves into?" Hound murmured.

"Something overwhelming... and wonderful," Trailbreaker said quietly, his glyphs heavy with meaning as his free arm caressed Seaspray's all-too-thin plating.

A vorn of courting, they had agreed. Eighty three short revolutions around Earth's sun. Hound could feel the overwhelmed certitude in Trailbreaker, echoing his own. They could not imagine any reality that would keep them from shielding the powerful-vulnerable Distillers for the remainder of their functioning. It would be a new, strange kind of web to weave within their cadre, but it felt right both to their coding and their protective sparks.

Their war had long ago lost any sense of purpose beyond survival. But now, here, in these two Distillers, and in this tiny watery world, brimming with life, they finally had something worth shielding.

end

* * *

**Additional Notes:**

Glossary:  
_Aegis_ - "shield", term used by Distillers to describe the individual mech they bond with and set their systems to provide energon and other important substances for. Preferably a mech with Guardian coding and a highly protective nature.  
_Cadre_ - The closest equivalent to family for Cybertronians. A grouping of mechs who share a web of bonds. Some cadres are created and onlined together, others form out of shared functioning and experience. _used in place of cohort for this fic in a rather lame attempt to be anon_  
_Distiller_ - particular frametype engineered for Cybertron's outer colonies. A small, minibot frame with a spark the size of a far larger mech who has the capability of internally creating/distilling energon and other substances vital to Cybertronian functioning. Distillers traditionally were coded to bond with and care for the needs of one large colonial mech who in turn protected and cared for their smaller partner. Distillers enabled colonies to be completely self sufficient, with little or no contact with Cybertron (something highly desirable to mecha with a colonial nature). While other means of 'synthegon' distillation exist, none came closer to AllSpark sourced energon than Distillers because they use pure spark energy for the process.  
_SMV_ - Standard Micro Volumetric (approx 1 deciliter)  
_Synthegon_- general term for energon not sourced by the AllSpark. The difference in the terms is indicated by minor glyph signifiers, and when speaking to humans, the term 'energon' would likely be used for both substances.

nanoklik= 1 second  
klik=1.2 minutes  
breem=8.3 minutes  
orn=13 days (a Cybertronian day)  
vorn=83 Earth years (a Cybertronian year)

In addition to Synaltern's wide open prompt, I was inspired by the "Truly Alien Sex" prompt from the kinkmeme on livejournal. I wanted to try to find a way to play with penetration kink that was not sticky and felt distinctly alien (not that I don't enjoy sticky, just wanted to try for something different). I was also inspired by another kinkmeme prompt I can no longer find that referenced non-poly mechs within a poly culture. Finally, I used the TF100 Earth table.

Hound and Trailbreaker did not appear in the live action movies, but were characters in the 2007 movie PSP game. I went in a different direction for their characterizations than what is described in the TF Wiki, leaning more on G1 for my references.

The reference to Trailbreaker's red visor comes from the 3-D trading card game (the one with the adorkable little head sticking out the camper shell of his alt!) and this fan artwork ( digitalcitizen . ca /2009 /06 /28 /transformers-wallpapers-collection-3-1280-x-1024-pixels-and-other-sizes /1280x1024-trailbreaker-2 /), (unable to find proper artists attribution at the time of writing). Trailbreaker's alt is a gunmetal grey Ford Superduty with an extra-large camper shell.

Hound's mechform looks something very much like Jamie Egerton's gorgeous artwork ( jamie - egerton . deviantart dot com /gallery /# /d2iuk5f - you'll have to decipher that one because this site is getting better at stripping links), but with the larger alt than the traditional jeep (I wanted him big!). He transforms into an AM General Humvee M1123 with a green camo pattern. Both Trailbreaker and Hound are roughly the same height as Movieverse Ironhide, with Trailbreaker the bulkier of the two.

Beachcomber and Seaspray's Distiller frametype is unique to this fic and was not based consciously on anything I was aware of in canon, though I realized while writing that there are some distinct similarities to canon Mini-cons from the Unicron Trilogy (no matter what you come up with in this fandom, it is somehow already canon). Both Distillers stand about nine feet tall, though Seaspray is much more barrel chested and stocky. Beachcomber's alt is a Gibbs/Lockhead Martin Military High Speed Amphibious Vehicle (www . gizmag dot com /go /7061 /picture /32958 /). Seaspray is a single-passenger submarine with a hydrofoil mode for skimming along the top of the water. His alt looks like this XS100TrioAlpha personal submarine concept by Guillermo Sureda (www . sureda /Portfolio /Transportation /XS100DuoBeta /XS100DuoBeta-LARGE .jpg), but is configured for only one passenger. Both Beachcomber and Seaspray have long, spindly digits both for digging into rocks and sediment for raw materials.

_Don't forget to review!_ :D


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